Nvidia has been doing this for over a decade and they don't seem to plan on changing that unfortunately. The 1060 3GB, 1030 DDR4, and now the 3050 6GB are just the most recent examples
It could be seen as misleading and false advertising which would make it illegal, at least in civilized countries with good consumer laws. Not sure if anyone have tried to report them to consumer authorities in their country.
How many more video cards are they going to release? I never thought I’d say this but there are far too many choices and I feel bad for the first time builders out there.
@@agiemaliki Fairly certain it's identical. The difference lies with how much watt they are allowed to draw. Desktop version will most likely be able to go as high as 115-125w, maybe a bit more if OC. If there is any gains beyond the stock PL remains to be seen and how stable it is. I am making a wild guess that the desktop variant will sit 20-30% higher in performance.
some moron whined about them using "another AMD box" for a CPU review (even though they said it in the video) was kinda ridiculous to whine about it but oh well...
@@nikhileshsingh8706There are no new RX480s for sale, haven't been for over 3 years. If you're factoring in inflation then you should factor in the fact you could have used a card for 7 years and saw basically no compelling reason to "upgrade" to a 3050 6GB other than power savings. And I say this having bought over 20 1030/1050s for friends and family. Pascal was their last attempt at selling anything below $400 with reasonable specs. I hate the company as a consumer, it's why I own their stock.
@@RFLCPTR A highly tuned, BIOS-modded 480/580 8GB is really going to be very close to the 3050 6GB and even outperform it in some situations, like VRAM-starved games. I mean, a regular 3050 8GB will score 18k in Fire Strike. My overclocked (1350core/2050mem), BIOS-modded RX 570 8GB scores 14.3k. It's really not a big difference and it's pretty ridiculous that both the 3050 8GB and 6GB have less memory bandwidth than an upper midrange Radeon from 2016.
Imagine employees going through the effort to make safety data sheets, specifications, develop a production line, giving out design drawings of PCBs and making the silicon chip and send to cooler manufacturers, designing the coolers and actually producing a product with boxes foams manuals and shit, for a trash, shipping them worldwide to retailers. And nvidia had to include this card for every driver update😂 What the actual f
@@happybuggy1582 not a big deal actually. Everywhere they just search-and-replace 3060 to 3050. GPU chip is modular, nvidia can disable any number of the building blocks to downgrade as low as physically possible.
@@happybuggy1582To be fair, they already have the silicon, since the card is identical to their laptop 3050 refresh. They just needed to put it on a separate PCB.
so they made a modern "GT 1030" but call it "GTX 1050TI" gotcha... should be illegal to call them the same when they are nowhere near the same... it should be called 3030... since it is basically just a new 1030...
3040, it outperforms the 1650, it's more like a 1660 and it does have RT and DLSS. If it was $40 cheaper and called 3040, it would be a compelling card. Especially the low profile version, the fact it's so compact and runs on board power means it can be put in any office prebuilt and you can get reasonable performance. No bad cards, just bad names and bad prices.
Low profile and pcie slot powered is a good thing. I wish we had more options in this niche segment. It will fit in a 2u server chassis, and it can bring lots of prebuilt office pcs back to life.
because Nvidia sells them GPU + ddr6 bundles for far more.AIB don't make much on GPU unless they go super premium which then don't sell.They are trapped by nvidia, that's why evga is no more. Evga wanted to be decent and they just couldn't, you have to play the scummy games with nvidia@@arenzricodexd4409
If I cannot buy a better card for more money, I buy nothing. I'm sure I can use that money for something better if I'm that poor. It is always a waste of money.
@@virtual-adam yeah what an amazing upgrade, these people are still rocking the 1650 because they're broke, it's not a new purchase, it's been in their rig for awhile
@@virtual-adamthe problem is the price , the standard 3050 was too expensive for its price and this 6gb version even if cheaper is also too expensive for its price . If you have a 1650 and you are looking for an upgrade, it's infinitely better to buy a used 2060 super or a new 6600 for 10$ more than the 3050 6gb
Same here, this card probably meant to replace GTX 1060 and 1660. At least we get a 1650 Super on the graphs, 1660 Super still beats this 3050 6GB but at least for cheaper MSRP. I just don't understand why reviewers don't include the cards what meant to be replaced, like GTX 1060/1660 and RX 480, but include cards like RX 6400 and Intel A580. If you bought the last two card you already regret it and replaced it, but if you have a GTX 1060 or RX 480 you still not gonna replace it with 3050. Almost 8 years passed these two GPU manufacturer just refuse to deliver better price/performance/watt cards than the last generation. There are tons of used RX 6600 on the market, originally bought for mining but they only run 6-8 months, they pretty good deal and only cost 60% of a new card price.
@@DragonOfTheMortalKombatOh really?: Adrenalin 24.1.1 (WHQL Recommended) File Size 629 MB Release Date 1/23/2024 RX 580 is not even in the Legacy section.
Is it? Any GFX with a decent heatsink, can be modded to loose any fan noise. Just print a duct and use better fans. But coil whine, well, it remains the key source of noise in all my builds. All of them. Fan noise is solved by now. As long as you got the know how, and know how to print a simple piece of plastic. For reference, I got a single RTX3060 that does not whine. I've been through about 30 cards by now, every other card whines. I only got a single silent card. For all the others, vrm and coil whine, is the main source of noise, and it it quite irritating in nature. That being said, if the Palit one has no coil whine, it sure will be great to duct for silent and cool operation. No need for a chip cooker inside of my builds. It does require a fan, at that TDP. For reference the fan hardly need to spin, so you will not hear it. Chances are, that you will get a ton of coil whine, simply dwarfing any fan. Love to be proven wrong. Palit surly should send me one, as I would mod it in a day, and praise it into the sky, if it only does not whine. Which it probably do.
@@Hardwareunboxed When you do =) , why not make a proper comparison with maybe only one card with external power (like that RX 6600) for comparison and ALL the other cards come with that same limitation?!? It's a niche but for some people it is relevant. With only 75 W available your simply limited to really "interesting" option like a usd GTX 1650 or 1050 Ti, the new ARC 380 without the extra plug, the ARC 310, the RX 6400 .. maybe the RTX A2000 (which kinda is the RTX 3050 6 GB). Some people are hungry for this "best solution in price/ performance" when the system is limited to "PCIE slot power only (75W)". Because it enables an upgrade to all those cheap office OEM PCs out there! Right up to pair it with an Ryzen 2200/ 2400 in an older office PC.
Minor correction/contention/elaboration: most new RTX 3050 8GBs use GA107 silicon. The full GA107 chip has 2560 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs, and 32ROPs, which is the exact spec of the RTX 3050 8GB. Nvidia prioritises supply for their RTX 3050 refresh laptop GPUs, which also use the full GA107 chip, but surplus GA107s and those which don't meet laptop efficiency requirements but still have all cores working, are used for desktop RTX 3050 8GBs. GA106 was used for the first production run of RTX 3050 8GBs because GA107 wasn't available at the time, but over the next few months, most RTX 3050 8GB cards switched to using GA107 because it's cheaper to manufacture and usually a bit more efficient. Some new RTX 3050 8GBs still use cut-down GA106, because some GA106 chips still don't have enough working cores or don't meet the efficiency ratings necessary to be an RTX 3060 or RTX A2000, but this is relatively rare and only done when necessary, similar to how RTX 2060 "KO" GPUs used TU104 chips with a large number of defective cores instead of TU106.
@@user-ej9nl1ng9dhow do you do that? Just set the wattage and unplug the power cable and "it just works"? Thanks in advance, I have an RTX A2000 but I may try this! The A2000 sells for more than what a 4060 would cost me, so if I can do that you best believe I will. Edit: did an extensive search, people said that it would not work online. Haven't ever tried it, but I am not convinced it'll work until I see it. If it does though, that would really change things.
Wait you can't just unplug the power cable since graphics cards can actually detect the presence of 6 or 8 pin power cables, iirc I tried plugging a 3060 with just 1 of the 2 8 pin cables (yes it's a Colorful 3 fan model with 2x instead of the usual 1x 8 pin) and my PC just blanked. My old Zotac 1060 gave warnings when I forgot the power plug and the PC didn't boot.
@@user-ej9nl1ng9dThey have GPUs like that already. RTX A2000 uses the 3060 chip and runs at 75W, there's a new RTX A2000 Ada that came out recently, it shares the same name confusingly but it uses the Ada lovelace chip and is significantly more powerful, still running on just 75W. The A4000 also exists, and I believe that one got an Ada lovelace revision as well, and that ones perfotmance is mind boggling considering the 75W limitation. I have an RTXA2000 the 3060 version, it runs games exceedingly well, it's just expensive and has limited supply. I only have one bc I managed to find one locally for an exceptionally good deal: $200 and it was only ever used in a office PC. I put it in a cheap prebuilt I got for $100 that has an intel 10400, and for the price of a series S I have a surprisingly capable PC that can run just about any game on the market at 60 fps and decent settings/resolution. I'd love to get my hands on the other 75W GPUs, but they're hard to come by, or absurdly expensive. It's insanely impressive to measure the wattage/performance ratio on them.
I think that the real marketing error that was done here is that for whatever reason NVIDIA did not mentioned the biggest advantage of this card (and only one ?) - it does not require additional power connector and it "can game". This makes this card a unique thing on the market. This is ideal for upgrading older PC (like office Dell Optiplex etc), or if you are making tiny ITX build, with this card you can get away with external pico laptop power adapter since GPU will not need additional power plug. Despite being slow & overpriced it still has a use case. I mean yeah, technically RTX A2000 & A4000 are faster and also do not use more power but those cards do cost as much as entire PC. Also, RTX 3050 6G - there is no reason to buy regular size card, only LP cards do matter here.
Pretty much; it's meant to replace the 1650 which came out what, 5-6 years ago? It's still not good enough as an upgrade though; 8/128 in a 75W window should have been possible by now (but that would have stepped on the toes of the 4060 8GB and Nvidia can't have that).
I have an unraid server and currently using a 1630 gtx (no power-pin version). This is a good replacement for me. It is a bit more expensive than what I expected though.
You're right about upgrading a "work station" type PC with non-powered cards. That's the only time I personally did it, with my first PC (AMD Sempron 3000/512mb ram). I don't remember what card I bought, but going from integrated gpu to a discrete gpu was night and day. I could play San Andreas and HL2 at a decent framerate with resolution better than 640x800 and I loved every moment of it. I'm sure some kid out there will get a lot of use out of this card.
@@zodwraith5745 Gigabyte LP version is 60 euros over msi's ventus x2 oc or gigabyte's own eagle OC where I am. But it's only 40 euros cheaper than rx 6400 lp
@@krizztykrab2297 96 bit bus with 3 gb memory modules aka 9gb vram is cheaper that 128bit memory bus with 2 gb of memory modules aka 8gb of vram... So because 96bit bus is cheaper... that is what we will get! 🤣
Guys, I really don't care. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the fastest PCI-e only GPU's and it has DLSS so it can give ageing machines a few mire years of life.
I think it's a great offering...and smashes previous gpus that don't need external power. It also does av1 decoding...so, a winner in my books. Albeit, just a tad expensive.
Should’ve also included a GTX 1070 to show how slow that card really is. I think people upgrading from the 10 series would be able to better understand where they stack up to these modern budget gpus
It's nice to see low/mid tier GPUs getting coverage. Some content creators get caught in the echo chamber of the very high end products and forget that most of us aren't buying that.
@@TheHeArTStRiKe What? Such a great card for my use case. I need a GPU for my second PC for video content with RTX features + 2x HDMI 2.1. It's just 200-220€ at my local store, so I might actually get it. VRAM is more than enough and warranty when buying a new product. Low power, low profile model, 2x HDMI, cheap + Tensor cores, yes please. Actually one of the best GPU releases for me who have 4080S for gaming, but only needs low power GPU for video content for 2x 4k TV.
@@Monsux RTX features? Good luck trying to play at 2 FPS with RT enabled. Tensor cores are irrelevant for this product, it doesn't have enough VRAM to use any decent AI model. SDXL uses 16GB at a minimum, SD uses 8GB+. You might be able to get away with really shitty low res renders. There are hundreds of better value low power options for watching video content.
@@giglioflex How to tell that you didn't even read my comment… I was commenting RTX video features that come with Tensor core's, like AI video upscaler/enhancer and AI HDR for SDR content. Great for streams, lower bitrate videos, and it also supports enhancing feature when using the same resolution as the display. I use it daily on my 4080 Super and 2070 Super on my server. Going to build a new tiny video server/home theater build for videos and needs 2 x HDMI 2.1. This is by far the cheapest GPU that can do all of that + more. Way better than my 2070 Super. You can easily play some esports and old gen games with this, but the main feature is the low power, slim, outputs, Tensor cores, and no need for extra power cables. You are so clueless what this cheap card can do. It actually saves me a lot of money + allows tiny build without extra cooling.
It's wild to me seeing the GTX 1650 4GB and RX 5500XT 8GB both so close to each other, and sometimes higher than newer cards. Am I crazy for thinking any 30 series card should be faster than any 10 series (or 16 series if you want) except for maybe the flagship (1080) vs the budget (3050) models? I DEFINITELY can't accept a 3050 6GB being on the same chart as a 1650 4GB, but when that 3050 is lower than another 50 class from 2 generations back and with 2/3rd the V-RAM you can't convince me that's okay.
Better performing card for a lower price than I expected from Nvidia. Miles better than what you get from the 6400 and 6500xt overall all things considered (adding it to an sff system or an old probably pcie 3.0 prebuilt, where it makes most sense to me). Still, pity they didn't do a 4050 instead, that would likely be a notable step up given how the 4000 series is more efficient.
There is a part of me that is thinking that they only released this product so that they can compare to this 3050 on slides in the future instead of the real one.
My GTX 1650 died. I replaced it with a RTX 3050 6gb. $170 New delivered from Amazon. Works great for what I do. HEVC Encoding. I could have spent Much More on a "faster" Ampere card. But they don't really encode any faster.
You know what this video really makes me wish for? Some AIB or a Chinese manufacturer just BIOS modding the RX 6600(m), power limiting to 70W and selling it as its own thing, not requiring a PCIe connector. I feel like there's a market for it for sure.
@@deanchur They made a 75W workstation variant of the RX 7600 (Radeon Pro W7500) that's cut down so it runs off slot power but I guess it hasn't been worth make a non-professional cheap consumer version of it.
@@GewelRealThe expression is hotcakes. Hotcakes are pancakes. Hot cakes wouldn't sell because the frosting would melt. That's why you let them cool before frosting.
Honestly if this had been called an RTX 3030 or 3040, I would be totally fine with it. The GTX 1050 was basically the same performance as the 950, but the thing that made it great was its low power draw. The name is the only real problem.
@@arenzricodexd4409 Nobody gives a shit about the 75W TGP. Nothing about this GPU is even remotely good. It's beyond a joke and is probably even worse than the 4060 Ti 8 GB. I am sure that most gamers have had enough of Nvidia releasing laughably terrible GPUs for the entry level and midrange segments.
@@Gamer-q7vexcept there is sizeable market for this kind of GPU. it is the reason why nvidia willing to tweak 3050 8GB spec so it can fit within 75w. In some place used 1650 are being sold at $170 the same as brand new 3050 6GB. Joke as it is not everyone willing to build DIY PC. just get some used optilex and drop in one of this 75w gpu. Then they have something decent for themselves.
There is another niche use case for this card and it's that it can be passively cooled. There is a passively cooled version sold by Palit, following their 1650 and 1050 Ti passively cooled cards.
This is interesting, I would like to see the performance of this card vs the RTX a2000. That card has 12GB VRAM and also runs exclusively off of PCie power. I feel like the a2000 would beat the 3050 6GB you are reviewing. I remember Dawid doing a video on it and the a2000 was able to go blow for blow with a 4060 that had the benefit of the power cord. Only mentioning because if someone was limited by the power draw being from the board then the a2000 should perform better than the card being reviewed here. The only issue is cost because an a2k is like $400+ USD used.
It’s not meant for heavy gaming. You can run it on external power which is good for light games and someone dipping their toes into the space or needing it for other reasons.
I want to see idle power consumption and encoding consumption. And the wattage of 2-4 monitors. This isnt a gamer card. This is a media card and should be treated as such.
It's too powerful to be a media card (compared to the horrible rx 6400 + it doesn't sell with a single slot version) Why don't you take a look at the intel arc a310 which is $100 & single slot?
@@thetechrealistrx6400 cant encode. 3050 basically has a full feature set and proven driver from nvidia. Sure you can go with intel, but I am sure not everyone can 100% calmly sleep with this driver support, at least I wouldnt want to now. In 3 generations? sure.
@@Skukkix23 Lol, Intel is too big to just give up on the graphics card market. But, if it's worth your piece of mind I guess the 3050 is better. Oh, & to halfway answer your question, the idle power draw should be around 10w or less. Given that the GTX 1050/ti idle power is 4w (source-techpowerup)
@@thetechrealistWhat's it with 3 monitors? During video playback? During encoding? Are multiple encoding streams a thing (unofficially anyways?) Can I remove the fans if I just use it as a displaycard on 4 monitors? Noone cares if this thing runs fortnite.
This review is a perfect example of what Jeff from Craft Computing was talking about when he made his RTX 4060 review. The information presented here is accurate - and completely useless for making a buying decision. People that are spending less than $200 on GPUs aren't buying $70 AAA titles. They are playing esports titles; and not a single one was covered in this review.
If the info given here doesn't help you and in fact is completely useless, then I'm sorry BUT you're the problem. Get better at understanding basic information. Also Jeff was wrong.
that is not true. the amount you spend on a gpu has zero bearing on howmuch you spend on games. the quality of the games is what decides if people will buy the 70$ games at full price or wait till they drop. games releasing in states that are nothing like advertized is not going to entice people to spend 70$ on them.
@@OmnianMIU lmfao you do realize you are coming off as a massive nvidia fanboy with that kind of statement right? fact is the card is not a 3050 and shouldnt be called 3050. like how hard would it have been for nvidia to call it the 3030 or the 3040. they obviously called it the 3050 because they can charge more for a 3050 than a 3030 and people will obviously get duped thinking they are buying a card that performs like the 3050 8gb but with just 2 gbs less but that isnt the case it doesnt just have 2gb less its slower aswell a whole tier slower.
@@thetechrealist In the middle of the crypto boom, when people were having problems getting ANYTHING to attach a monitor to (remember, AMD didn't have integrated graphics at that time) AMD took their low-end laptop dedicated GPUs and stuck them on boards and called it a day. They are products that made sense in that specific context, but today have no place in the market.
@@thetechrealist the 6500/6400 family are by no means great, but even the 6500 xt 8gb still beats out the 3050 6gb while having more ram and lower prices, the 4gb has even lower prices, and the 6400 is just not even in the same bracket its more like a video adapter. but again, not great cards, nobody liked them. and even then they perform better at lower prices (6500 8gb) and everyone hated them, so why like the 3050?
I'd be ok with them labeling this a 3030, particularly if it comes in slim version for those half-width old office PC's that are all over the refurbished market
It might be a very niche topic, but I'd be heavily interested in a video about TDP-limiting various GPUs and how it affects their performance scaling. Nvidia sells some rather intriguing 70W-limited professional cards like the RTX 2000 Ada & 4000 SFF - but those cost an arm and a leg ofc. Using some 12GB+ cards and limiting their TDP in comparison to the prof. variants' pricing would make for a very interesting topic to explore imo.
Its better choice than rx 6600 for me even with close to similar pricing Its good for internet cafe business Where perf dont matter that much (at least in my country) 70watts is good Its the perfect replacement for 1650 1050/ti 750ti But i do agree 6600 is good
Thank you for the review Steve. I am interested in dropping one of these low profile RTX 3050s in an old SFF case. It looks to be the fastest lp graphics card that doesn't need external power.
Great roundup, but really drives home there's nothing budget in the current generation which concerns me for the future. Thanks for putting the A580 in this comparison!
They want to maximize margins and the name allows OEMs to scam customers by selling them a "3050" but at a lower cost to the OEM. It's extremely scummy but Nviida have been doing this for awhile.
I had an i5 4590 Dell Optiplex that I got for dirt cheap and then I bought a GTX 1060 6gb and a 450w PSU the December of 2016 just to find out I cant just upgrade my power supply. So I found a TH-cam video on how to use my new PSU to power my GPU separately from the proprietary PSU. I was so ecstatic. That was my first decent PC gaming experience. Used it for about a year like that before buying a second hand motherboard and chassis. I was always scared something would go wrong and blew my GPU up. Nothing could kill that 1060. It ran all my games until January this year when I bought my 4070 Super. I mined crypto currency with it and rendered scenes in Blender it had no business rendering. And it still ran strong but I could definitely see its age in newer games. I feel regret selling it. Should have kept it is a memorabilia.
For me its the low profile variants of this card that are the most interesting, as being both bus powered and low profile makes them a very big upgrade for SFF OptiPlex systems which have 2 low profile slots. As they offer a massive uplift in performance over the intel onboard video and you also gain AI Video upscaling (RTX super resolution works much better than I expected on my large library of DVD rips) for use in most browsers and Mediaplayer classic. The only complaint is the terrible name, I liked the card that much I actually purchased a second as an upgrade for a 1650 non supper bus power card I use in my dual system Phanteks system, as being able to dive 3 monitors on the secondly low powered system i snot something I wanted to give up. Both cards were on sale for £175 including sales TAX and delivered the next day from one of the big online UK computer parts retailers, so at least for me the only complaint is the terribly misleading name, they should have been called RTX3040 Ti. Not the right product for everyday budget gaming, but a killer product for the right buyer if available at MSRP or less.
Not a bad product for a new board without external power requirements. Nice option to convert an office PC to a low end gamer using new part without resorting to funky DYI power setups that can easily damage Vid card/PC. I agree naming can be misleading, but at least it generally gives 60fps for current games.
Bound to happen with a newly released product. It's hilarious how many shady retailers still think they can scalp GPUs no matter how bad they are, as long as they're new.
It's crazy how reviewers underestimate the used OEM market, they are perfect option if you tight on budget, or just don't know what will be your next step, you wanna play games or not. Somehow kids and those who pirate games (often overlaps these groups) are never counted, they don't show up on statistics or I don't know whats the deal. When I started to use PC again after a long time of laptop usage I bought a used dell 7010, 3rd gen i5 system, popped in a new 1050Ti and started gaming. Slowly replaced all the components in the system, but I would never spend on the first place double or tripple the price of the original system. It taught me to trust better in the used market.
@@sviktor4It's crazy how the OEM market advocates are ready to pay way too much for a GPU that costs next to nothing to manufacture. Funny also how that they forget to mention that the 8700G, 7840U and 8840U exist and fit the small form factor and low power usage market even better.
Have seen a few used A2000s for ~€170 and think I'll still go for that. Price/performance works out a little better and I don't have to give money to nVidia 🥳
@@kathleendelcourt8136 Those who buy OEM systems are uninformed and have some level of trust issues with the used market, they just wanna save some money. An average working guy who spends a little time on research, or a college suggest some config is good enough to buy a system. People use these systems in the office they know they can trust a 3-4 years old OEM PC, but it's has limitations so they buy a new LP graphics card, because they don't know and trust the used market, both the used OEM PC and the new GPU came with warrianty. In 2017 when I bought a PC after a long time of laptop usage I set a limit of 100.000 HUF. 60.000 HUF for a Dell 7010 system and 37.000 HUF for a brand knew 1050Ti LP. The next year or two I slowly replaced the whole system with stronger components, but I had to start my jouney somewhere. An other point to consider you can buy dirt cheap OEM PC from your company, so you have lot more money for "stupid" GPU. My friend sent me a list what's worth buying, and all thesystem were dirt cheap, just the CPU alone worth more then the whole system in the used market.
In my country rtx 3050 6gb $190, rtx 3050 8gb $250 and rx 6600 $340. That's why I decided to buy RTX 3050 6GB and because of the low energy consumption. I don't play at 4k and 200 fps. The games I play run well with the RTX 3050 6gb dlss
More for updating a business pc, or a home theater build; but it is NOT a gaming GPU. To determine its place in history, compare it to its actual predecessor: the 1650 (non-super) with the same power limit. That would show steady improvement from the 1050/1650/3050 over time. Comparing it by price to pandemic cards is sort of useless; and the Radeon card was limited by TDP of just 53 W. As your prior video demonstrated, vram matters; so constantly slamming the 6400 for not competing with a 75W card with half again the vram ? Just say they aren't equivalent and leave it. Even the 6500xt had twice the TDP of that card. Oh, and you get big bonus points for NOT including crap like the 1030 or 710 that seemed to be pandemic best sellers. You'd only buy one of the low power cards for a very small system, or to upgrade a system with just an IGP and worthless power supply. Any discussion of value, then, probably needs to include upgrading the power supply for anything more powerful, that fits in the case ----- which is almost your entire list of cards . I paid almost a hundred US to upgrade the pitiful 180w ps in a desktop HP was selling (it was, however, really really cheap, and a storm blew out my previous system -- and the TV, the microwave, some light bulbs. . . . I needed cheap!)
Steve gets riled up because he thinks "3050" is the name when "3050 GB" or GV-N3050EAGLE OC-6GD" is the actual name of the product. He did the same thing with the GT 1030 DDR4 and 5700 where he cried that the 5700 is a 5700G without the graphics (when the G designation is literally... graphics). Once he realizes he doesn't like the "name", he does whatever possible to make the product look as bad as possible. "Outrage drives clicks and clicks drive revenue."
@@tim3172he's right in that if you look at the listing on Amazon or Newegg, the sku or product number isn't what the non-savvy person will be aware of; but he also ought to be used to it by now. Somebodies' Grandma is going to get the wrong stocking stuffer. But expecting NVidia to care? Steve will give himself a stroke.
Good for low profile, plex-oriented hardware transcoding setups, emulation, retro/indie gaming and backup display if your big man GPU dies. But a used low profile card could also do it. At least you have a warranty and the bells and whistles IF you want to game.
@@inGameweTrusted Less power consumption when it's idle, i guess RX 6500xt would be good for gaming and productivity. I thought Arc A580 would be good for futureproofing. Is RX 6500xt good?
Nvidia literally going for a cash grab for people who know little about graphic cards and computer peripherals and trying to scam them by selling an inferior product that is BOTTOM OF THE BARREL with "more" memory. Quite an introduction these folks will have to Nvidia, shame as they have some good GPUs from the current generation that can be sold cheaper.
They did this before with GTX 1630... This is the very bottom of their last gen stack, there's no universe where this shouldn't be a 10/20/30 class and cost at most $100... but yay price _and_ name inflation, screw nGreedia.
The naming also has business side problems. Much harder to upsell to an 8GB model as they are "the same model". If they named it something like the "RTX 3050 C", C for carbon, for instance it would be distinct and people might go up to the next model. You can come up with whether carbon is carbon fiber or coal or something else.
So remembering the RTX 3060 8GB too, I'd name them like so. RTX 3050ti - (RTX 3060 8GB) RTX 3050 - (RTX 3050 8GB) RTX 3030 - (RTX 3050 6GB) The reason I'd pick 3030 instead of 3040, is there have been several XX30 class GPUs that have been small, basic, cheap GPUs, so we can all understand what Nvidia is actually selling, see 730, 1030, 1630. I don't know if a XX40 class has ever existed.
Hi Steve, thanks for the thorough review and price comparison for this budget card. For the comparison charts at the end with cost per frame, please could you in future include the VRAM capacity for ALL cards, as this helps when comparing prices looking up and down the rows. Thanks for the great work as always 🙂
When were the 50 class cards ever lower than 100 USD? I looked at the MSRPs for a bunch of them and the lowest I could find were the 650 and 1050 at $110. That's not even accounting for inflation either.
In my country it's still the same price as the rx 6600, budget nvidia cards are horrible.
It will get cheaper
@@ASS_ault When?
@@ASS_ault So will the Rx 6600.
And you'll still buy it anyway! LOL
THANKS FOR THE LEATHER!
@@jensenhuangnvidiaCEO ALL HAIL JENSEN HUANG! LET'S GET NVIDIA SHARE PRICE TO 3 TRILLION!
Nvidia has been doing this for over a decade and they don't seem to plan on changing that unfortunately. The 1060 3GB, 1030 DDR4, and now the 3050 6GB are just the most recent examples
RTX 3060 8GB (which should be an RTX 3050 Ti tbh) is also an abomination of a GPU
It could be seen as misleading and false advertising which would make it illegal, at least in civilized countries with good consumer laws. Not sure if anyone have tried to report them to consumer authorities in their country.
The most egregious attempt was the 12GB 4080, but that riled up too many feathers so they backed down.
Bro who cares, as along as they sold out😅 its smart moves by nvidia bad move for buyer tho
IIRC the GTX 750 had 3 or 4 different specs, with even different chips used
If only Nvidia had a passing idea of the concept of integrity and named it a 3040 like they should have.
3030
or at the very least 3050 LP (low power), or something
3000
3040... 3050 Lite... something like that
How many more video cards are they going to release? I never thought I’d say this but there are far too many choices and I feel bad for the first time builders out there.
Its a waste of sand, plastic, and your money.
Maybe the 8GB model but not this.
@@arenzricodexd4409 You for real?
Time
@@arenzricodexd4409nvdia fan boy copium
😢
Desktop users: NVIDIA LOWERED THE 3050 FROM 8GB TO 6GB VRAM 😡
Laptop users: NVIDIA INCREASED THE 3050 FROM 4GB to 6GB VRAM 😌
I wonder how much performance difference between those two
@@agiemaliki Fairly certain it's identical. The difference lies with how much watt they are allowed to draw. Desktop version will most likely be able to go as high as 115-125w, maybe a bit more if OC. If there is any gains beyond the stock PL remains to be seen and how stable it is. I am making a wild guess that the desktop variant will sit 20-30% higher in performance.
damn, that "look it says 6gb here" was hilarious, like showing some kind of freak
some moron whined about them using "another AMD box" for a CPU review (even though they said it in the video) was kinda ridiculous to whine about it but oh well...
I know, I already hang my head in shame when I tell someone I have a 3070... 🤣🤣🤣
The RX480 offered the same performance and more memory at the same price 7 years ago.
7 years ago!
Nbarrassing.
a bit less performance but yeah, the same performance tier...
You have to factor in the inflation as well.
and for 125e here in spain
@@nikhileshsingh8706There are no new RX480s for sale, haven't been for over 3 years. If you're factoring in inflation then you should factor in the fact you could have used a card for 7 years and saw basically no compelling reason to "upgrade" to a 3050 6GB other than power savings. And I say this having bought over 20 1030/1050s for friends and family. Pascal was their last attempt at selling anything below $400 with reasonable specs. I hate the company as a consumer, it's why I own their stock.
@@RFLCPTR A highly tuned, BIOS-modded 480/580 8GB is really going to be very close to the 3050 6GB and even outperform it in some situations, like VRAM-starved games. I mean, a regular 3050 8GB will score 18k in Fire Strike. My overclocked (1350core/2050mem), BIOS-modded RX 570 8GB scores 14.3k. It's really not a big difference and it's pretty ridiculous that both the 3050 8GB and 6GB have less memory bandwidth than an upper midrange Radeon from 2016.
What a way to sell old generation 🤣
Imagine employees going through the effort to make safety data sheets, specifications, develop a production line, giving out design drawings of PCBs and making the silicon chip and send to cooler manufacturers, designing the coolers and actually producing a product with boxes foams manuals and shit, for a trash, shipping them worldwide to retailers.
And nvidia had to include this card for every driver update😂
What the actual f
😂
@@happybuggy1582 not a big deal actually. Everywhere they just search-and-replace 3060 to 3050. GPU chip is modular, nvidia can disable any number of the building blocks to downgrade as low as physically possible.
@@happybuggy1582To be fair, they already have the silicon, since the card is identical to their laptop 3050 refresh. They just needed to put it on a separate PCB.
This device is proof how nvidia is running planned obsolescence scam.
so they made a modern "GT 1030" but call it "GTX 1050TI" gotcha... should be illegal to call them the same when they are nowhere near the same... it should be called 3030... since it is basically just a new 1030...
Maybe rt 3030 or 3040
3040, it outperforms the 1650, it's more like a 1660 and it does have RT and DLSS. If it was $40 cheaper and called 3040, it would be a compelling card. Especially the low profile version, the fact it's so compact and runs on board power means it can be put in any office prebuilt and you can get reasonable performance. No bad cards, just bad names and bad prices.
It should be the "RTX" 1660 xD
The legendary Gt 1030 only uses 30w maximum…
That’s laptop gpu level
Yet you think this 70w card should be called a 3030….
The GP108 (GeForce GT 1030) was NVidia's last true low-end chip :-(
The more you buy, the more leather I have .
The more you buy, the more dividends I receive.
the more you buy, the more the wallet cries
Thanks for the sneak preview of the 5060
Finally! A card that makes my old 1070Ti look good again!
Yo, still using 1070 ti
I only just now dropped my 1080 and only because I swapped from 1440p to 4k monitor
Low profile and pcie slot powered is a good thing. I wish we had more options in this niche segment. It will fit in a 2u server chassis, and it can bring lots of prebuilt office pcs back to life.
I bought a passively cooled Palit RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB card and I am very satisfied. Silence and energy efficiency are the most important to me.
Same^^
It's a good GPU
for 79.99$
no AIB will want to sell GPU with such MSRP anymore. the minimum bar is $150.
Even that is too much
Exactly. You could maybe push to $99.99
because Nvidia sells them GPU + ddr6 bundles for far more.AIB don't make much on GPU unless they go super premium which then don't sell.They are trapped by nvidia, that's why evga is no more. Evga wanted to be decent and they just couldn't, you have to play the scummy games with nvidia@@arenzricodexd4409
If I cannot buy a better card for more money, I buy nothing.
I'm sure I can use that money for something better if I'm that poor.
It is always a waste of money.
In my country (Croatia) rx 580 8gb can still be found new for 180 euros, rtx 3050 6gb is around 200 euros and rx 6600 is 230 euros.
And there's precisely 0 reason to buy anything other than the 6600 in that price category
@@pedrolantyer I agree. Had rx 580 for 5 yrs, great gpu but now is obsolete. I'm now on rx 6700xt.
New XFX RX 6600 Swift210 in Serbia is 200 euros. Bought one for sons PC. Great card.
They aren't really doing driver enhancement updates for that card anymore. I'd avoid it now.
And there's no specific reason to buy this 2 peace of garbage trashdeon. Get this RTX and be happy with it
These people believe it or not, went to very good universities making these decisions
The 1650 is second on the Steam hardware survey, so maybe the 3050 6GB will be a big seller?
@@virtual-adam yeah what an amazing upgrade, these people are still rocking the 1650 because they're broke, it's not a new purchase, it's been in their rig for awhile
@@virtual-adamthe problem is the price , the standard 3050 was too expensive for its price and this 6gb version even if cheaper is also too expensive for its price .
If you have a 1650 and you are looking for an upgrade, it's infinitely better to buy a used 2060 super or a new 6600 for 10$ more than the 3050 6gb
most gamers are broke.. @@dbunik44
Hot take: that’s why NVIDIA’s pricing is the way it is.
They keep ripping customers off but yet people keep buying them
Wish this was compared to GTX 1060 / RX 580
Rx 580 is dead, it stopped recieving driver updates.
@@DragonOfTheMortalKombatso is 1060, your point is?
@@ionutbagmuianu884i'm pretty sure the 10 series is still getting driver updates
Same here, this card probably meant to replace GTX 1060 and 1660. At least we get a 1650 Super on the graphs, 1660 Super still beats this 3050 6GB but at least for cheaper MSRP.
I just don't understand why reviewers don't include the cards what meant to be replaced, like GTX 1060/1660 and RX 480, but include cards like RX 6400 and Intel A580. If you bought the last two card you already regret it and replaced it, but if you have a GTX 1060 or RX 480 you still not gonna replace it with 3050. Almost 8 years passed these two GPU manufacturer just refuse to deliver better price/performance/watt cards than the last generation.
There are tons of used RX 6600 on the market, originally bought for mining but they only run 6-8 months, they pretty good deal and only cost 60% of a new card price.
@@DragonOfTheMortalKombatOh really?:
Adrenalin 24.1.1 (WHQL Recommended)
File Size
629 MB
Release Date
1/23/2024
RX 580 is not even in the Legacy section.
There is only 1 RTX 3050 6GB that is worth to buy
That Palit one, the only Passive Cooled one
Good point. I think a very small ITX build would benefit.
@@idocare6538 The small ITX would need some decent airflow in the case itself in that situation.
@@idocare6538 you can google it, Palit 3050 KalmX
@@idocare6538 just as an FYI, the passively cooled ones require good airflow
Is it? Any GFX with a decent heatsink, can be modded to loose any fan noise. Just print a duct and use better fans. But coil whine, well, it remains the key source of noise in all my builds. All of them. Fan noise is solved by now. As long as you got the know how, and know how to print a simple piece of plastic. For reference, I got a single RTX3060 that does not whine. I've been through about 30 cards by now, every other card whines. I only got a single silent card.
For all the others, vrm and coil whine, is the main source of noise, and it it quite irritating in nature.
That being said, if the Palit one has no coil whine, it sure will be great to duct for silent and cool operation. No need for a chip cooker inside of my builds. It does require a fan, at that TDP. For reference the fan hardly need to spin, so you will not hear it. Chances are, that you will get a ton of coil whine, simply dwarfing any fan. Love to be proven wrong. Palit surly should send me one, as I would mod it in a day, and praise it into the sky, if it only does not whine. Which it probably do.
I thought Steve would have snubbed this product, but he reviewed it nonetheless, what a champ!
I love the budget stuff :)
@@Hardwareunboxed When you do =) , why not make a proper comparison with maybe only one card with external power (like that RX 6600) for comparison and ALL the other cards come with that same limitation?!? It's a niche but for some people it is relevant.
With only 75 W available your simply limited to really "interesting" option like a usd GTX 1650 or 1050 Ti, the new ARC 380 without the extra plug, the ARC 310, the RX 6400 .. maybe the RTX A2000 (which kinda is the RTX 3050 6 GB).
Some people are hungry for this "best solution in price/ performance" when the system is limited to "PCIE slot power only (75W)". Because it enables an upgrade to all those cheap office OEM PCs out there! Right up to pair it with an Ryzen 2200/ 2400 in an older office PC.
Minor correction/contention/elaboration: most new RTX 3050 8GBs use GA107 silicon. The full GA107 chip has 2560 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs, and 32ROPs, which is the exact spec of the RTX 3050 8GB. Nvidia prioritises supply for their RTX 3050 refresh laptop GPUs, which also use the full GA107 chip, but surplus GA107s and those which don't meet laptop efficiency requirements but still have all cores working, are used for desktop RTX 3050 8GBs.
GA106 was used for the first production run of RTX 3050 8GBs because GA107 wasn't available at the time, but over the next few months, most RTX 3050 8GB cards switched to using GA107 because it's cheaper to manufacture and usually a bit more efficient.
Some new RTX 3050 8GBs still use cut-down GA106, because some GA106 chips still don't have enough working cores or don't meet the efficiency ratings necessary to be an RTX 3060 or RTX A2000, but this is relatively rare and only done when necessary, similar to how RTX 2060 "KO" GPUs used TU104 chips with a large number of defective cores instead of TU106.
Price is outrages.
The 4060 LP would make for the better drop in on some office PCs. Despite the additional required power plug.
@@user-ej9nl1ng9dthe 4060 already uses AD107 which would traditionally be the 50-class die
@@user-ej9nl1ng9dhow do you do that? Just set the wattage and unplug the power cable and "it just works"? Thanks in advance, I have an RTX A2000 but I may try this! The A2000 sells for more than what a 4060 would cost me, so if I can do that you best believe I will.
Edit: did an extensive search, people said that it would not work online. Haven't ever tried it, but I am not convinced it'll work until I see it. If it does though, that would really change things.
Wait you can't just unplug the power cable since graphics cards can actually detect the presence of 6 or 8 pin power cables, iirc I tried plugging a 3060 with just 1 of the 2 8 pin cables (yes it's a Colorful 3 fan model with 2x instead of the usual 1x 8 pin) and my PC just blanked. My old Zotac 1060 gave warnings when I forgot the power plug and the PC didn't boot.
@@user-ej9nl1ng9dThey have GPUs like that already. RTX A2000 uses the 3060 chip and runs at 75W, there's a new RTX A2000 Ada that came out recently, it shares the same name confusingly but it uses the Ada lovelace chip and is significantly more powerful, still running on just 75W. The A4000 also exists, and I believe that one got an Ada lovelace revision as well, and that ones perfotmance is mind boggling considering the 75W limitation.
I have an RTXA2000 the 3060 version, it runs games exceedingly well, it's just expensive and has limited supply. I only have one bc I managed to find one locally for an exceptionally good deal: $200 and it was only ever used in a office PC. I put it in a cheap prebuilt I got for $100 that has an intel 10400, and for the price of a series S I have a surprisingly capable PC that can run just about any game on the market at 60 fps and decent settings/resolution. I'd love to get my hands on the other 75W GPUs, but they're hard to come by, or absurdly expensive. It's insanely impressive to measure the wattage/performance ratio on them.
"Despite the additional required power plug." ... Which rules it out for many.
Thank you for the review of the RTX 3030. Lets see when the RTX 3010 with the name RTX 3030 gets released
RX 6600 Is the king of budget GPUs in this day and age as it nearly performs the same as a 3060 but for the price of 180-200
And If the 6500XT came out with 8gb vram for 149 or something then it would have made the 3050 6GB even worse
All trashdeon cards are obsolete, not king, please don't be ridiculous 💀
@@Thejacketof-huang The benchmarks don't lie.
@@Beginnergamer1823 AMDumb where is trashdeon rx 6500xt 8GB? 🤡🧠🚫💀👉🏻🚽
Rx 580 is king for $100 beat that
I think that the real marketing error that was done here is that for whatever reason NVIDIA did not mentioned the biggest advantage of this card (and only one ?) - it does not require additional power connector and it "can game". This makes this card a unique thing on the market. This is ideal for upgrading older PC (like office Dell Optiplex etc), or if you are making tiny ITX build, with this card you can get away with external pico laptop power adapter since GPU will not need additional power plug. Despite being slow & overpriced it still has a use case. I mean yeah, technically RTX A2000 & A4000 are faster and also do not use more power but those cards do cost as much as entire PC. Also, RTX 3050 6G - there is no reason to buy regular size card, only LP cards do matter here.
Pretty much; it's meant to replace the 1650 which came out what, 5-6 years ago?
It's still not good enough as an upgrade though; 8/128 in a 75W window should have been possible by now (but that would have stepped on the toes of the 4060 8GB and Nvidia can't have that).
I have an unraid server and currently using a 1630 gtx (no power-pin version). This is a good replacement for me. It is a bit more expensive than what I expected though.
It evolves just backwards
Unless this costs 120 bucks or less this is a straight up waste of silicon.
Whoa, I thought I had clicked on a video that was 2 years old. That's insane that they are releasing this now.
Playing "Funny Buggers", love it when you use Aussie slang in your vid's Steve, Great work !!
You're right about upgrading a "work station" type PC with non-powered cards. That's the only time I personally did it, with my first PC (AMD Sempron 3000/512mb ram). I don't remember what card I bought, but going from integrated gpu to a discrete gpu was night and day. I could play San Andreas and HL2 at a decent framerate with resolution better than 640x800 and I loved every moment of it. I'm sure some kid out there will get a lot of use out of this card.
"Having two GPUs with the same designation is confusing." - Nvidia 2022
If AIB's make a Low Profile version and keep the price down to MSRP this would be a better upgrade solution for those Dell and HP office PC systems!
Gigabyte already has a low pro version and it's only $6 over MSRP. AIBs know exactly who this is targeting.
@@zodwraith5745 i did some checking around myself and MSI also is releasing a LP version too! Nice!
@@zodwraith5745 Gigabyte LP version is 60 euros over msi's ventus x2 oc or gigabyte's own eagle OC where I am. But it's only 40 euros cheaper than rx 6400 lp
It should have been closer to $150 called the 3040 and marketed as a low profile and low consumption card
"This model was quite slow on It's way down to Australia" Yes, because It traveled from Santa Clara on a bus... on Its 96bit bus to be exact...
it's = it is
Crappy 96-bit memory bus for $170, that is some premium e-waste!
Yep, it's a xx30 class card for xx60 class prices.
Just wait 5060 to have 96 bit bus next year! With 9gb of vram!
You should see the $160 msrp AMD 6400! lol
@@haukionkannel9gb vram? In your dreams. You'll get no more than 8gb.
@@krizztykrab2297
96 bit bus with 3 gb memory modules aka 9gb vram is cheaper that 128bit memory bus with 2 gb of memory modules aka 8gb of vram... So because 96bit bus is cheaper... that is what we will get!
🤣
Wish they added 1660 TI or super to the charts aswell.
The 1660 ti is very simillar to the 3050 8GB.
1660 ti would be on pair, or a bit faster than 6gb ver
it sure beats 6gb 3050 version. since it barelly 5fps or so faster than 1650s@@FATBOY_.
As far as I remember it was very close with the RX 5500 XT
after looking
nah the 1660Super was even 7-10fps faster back in 2019
Guys, I really don't care. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the fastest PCI-e only GPU's and it has DLSS so it can give ageing machines a few mire years of life.
And this is why we're being sold trash at all time high prices :D
If the price 100 dollar
This card goes for around the same price as the cheapest 7600 in my region, which is down right insulting.
Considering the rtx 4060 is twice the performance as rtx 3050 6gb hence the price should have been $150.
Look at wattage + competition (rx 6400 & arc a380) ($160 msrp or $120 msrp)
I think it's a great offering...and smashes previous gpus that don't need external power. It also does av1 decoding...so, a winner in my books. Albeit, just a tad expensive.
shame that the 3060 is missing in the charts
Should’ve also included a GTX 1070 to show how slow that card really is. I think people upgrading from the 10 series would be able to better understand where they stack up to these modern budget gpus
Glad you did this, needed to be done
What a well made video. You covered everything from fps to efficiency and operating temps. I'm subbed!
It's nice to see low/mid tier GPUs getting coverage.
Some content creators get caught in the echo chamber of the very high end products and forget that most of us aren't buying that.
No one should be buying this
@@TheHeArTStRiKe What? Such a great card for my use case. I need a GPU for my second PC for video content with RTX features + 2x HDMI 2.1. It's just 200-220€ at my local store, so I might actually get it. VRAM is more than enough and warranty when buying a new product. Low power, low profile model, 2x HDMI, cheap + Tensor cores, yes please. Actually one of the best GPU releases for me who have 4080S for gaming, but only needs low power GPU for video content for 2x 4k TV.
@@Monsux RTX features? Good luck trying to play at 2 FPS with RT enabled. Tensor cores are irrelevant for this product, it doesn't have enough VRAM to use any decent AI model. SDXL uses 16GB at a minimum, SD uses 8GB+. You might be able to get away with really shitty low res renders. There are hundreds of better value low power options for watching video content.
No one should be buying this thing. You could have had this level of performance at the same price 7 years ago.
@@giglioflex How to tell that you didn't even read my comment… I was commenting RTX video features that come with Tensor core's, like AI video upscaler/enhancer and AI HDR for SDR content. Great for streams, lower bitrate videos, and it also supports enhancing feature when using the same resolution as the display. I use it daily on my 4080 Super and 2070 Super on my server. Going to build a new tiny video server/home theater build for videos and needs 2 x HDMI 2.1. This is by far the cheapest GPU that can do all of that + more. Way better than my 2070 Super.
You can easily play some esports and old gen games with this, but the main feature is the low power, slim, outputs, Tensor cores, and no need for extra power cables. You are so clueless what this cheap card can do. It actually saves me a lot of money + allows tiny build without extra cooling.
Thank you for actually doing a benchmark. All other "tech" channels dismissed it, missing the whole point of having benchmarks.
It's wild to me seeing the GTX 1650 4GB and RX 5500XT 8GB both so close to each other, and sometimes higher than newer cards.
Am I crazy for thinking any 30 series card should be faster than any 10 series (or 16 series if you want) except for maybe the flagship (1080) vs the budget (3050) models? I DEFINITELY can't accept a 3050 6GB being on the same chart as a 1650 4GB, but when that 3050 is lower than another 50 class from 2 generations back and with 2/3rd the V-RAM you can't convince me that's okay.
Better performing card for a lower price than I expected from Nvidia. Miles better than what you get from the 6400 and 6500xt overall all things considered (adding it to an sff system or an old probably pcie 3.0 prebuilt, where it makes most sense to me). Still, pity they didn't do a 4050 instead, that would likely be a notable step up given how the 4000 series is more efficient.
There is a part of me that is thinking that they only released this product so that they can compare to this 3050 on slides in the future instead of the real one.
My GTX 1650 died. I replaced it with a RTX 3050 6gb. $170 New delivered from Amazon. Works great for what I do. HEVC Encoding. I could have spent Much More on a "faster" Ampere card. But they don't really encode any faster.
You know what this video really makes me wish for?
Some AIB or a Chinese manufacturer just BIOS modding the RX 6600(m), power limiting to 70W and selling it as its own thing, not requiring a PCIe connector.
I feel like there's a market for it for sure.
It's a silly request in a way, given a 6600M is a 6600 XT chip, not a 6600 non XT. So a 6600 non XT at 70W could hold higher clocks than a 6600 XT.
Or AMD doing it themselves. It would sell like hot cakes
@@GewelReal Yeah I've never seen AMD make any real effort in the sub 75W space
@@deanchur They made a 75W workstation variant of the RX 7600 (Radeon Pro W7500) that's cut down so it runs off slot power but I guess it hasn't been worth make a non-professional cheap consumer version of it.
@@GewelRealThe expression is hotcakes. Hotcakes are pancakes.
Hot cakes wouldn't sell because the frosting would melt. That's why you let them cool before frosting.
great timing, just looking into the 3050 atm! Thanks!
Just imagine how many clueless buyers are gonna overpay for this in their prebuilt systems just because it says "Geforce RTX" on it
If they're buying a prebuilt system, they're not going to care or if they do care, they can easily return it....
Honestly if this had been called an RTX 3030 or 3040, I would be totally fine with it. The GTX 1050 was basically the same performance as the 950, but the thing that made it great was its low power draw. The name is the only real problem.
Nvidia is just trolling at this point. Anyone who buys the 3050 6GB, which is really just a 3040, has lost it.
Regardless of the naming issue the card still the fastest sub 75w gaming card.
@@arenzricodexd4409 Nobody gives a shit about the 75W TGP. Nothing about this GPU is even remotely good. It's beyond a joke and is probably even worse than the 4060 Ti 8 GB. I am sure that most gamers have had enough of Nvidia releasing laughably terrible GPUs for the entry level and midrange segments.
@@Gamer-q7vexcept there is sizeable market for this kind of GPU. it is the reason why nvidia willing to tweak 3050 8GB spec so it can fit within 75w. In some place used 1650 are being sold at $170 the same as brand new 3050 6GB. Joke as it is not everyone willing to build DIY PC. just get some used optilex and drop in one of this 75w gpu. Then they have something decent for themselves.
No way guys, 1050ti users can finally skip a generation
😬
There is another niche use case for this card and it's that it can be passively cooled. There is a passively cooled version sold by Palit, following their 1650 and 1050 Ti passively cooled cards.
This is interesting, I would like to see the performance of this card vs the RTX a2000. That card has 12GB VRAM and also runs exclusively off of PCie power. I feel like the a2000 would beat the 3050 6GB you are reviewing. I remember Dawid doing a video on it and the a2000 was able to go blow for blow with a 4060 that had the benefit of the power cord. Only mentioning because if someone was limited by the power draw being from the board then the a2000 should perform better than the card being reviewed here. The only issue is cost because an a2k is like $400+ USD used.
Try searching for A2000 6gb, they're less than half of that, at least here in Spain.
If it had the AV1 Asic, it'd be a good card but here we are.
100-120usd would be good for it
It’s not meant for heavy gaming. You can run it on external power which is good for light games and someone dipping their toes into the space or needing it for other reasons.
It doesn't require external power, dumdum.
@@tim3172 no shit sherlock 🤓 I obviously mistyped
I want to see idle power consumption and encoding consumption. And the wattage of 2-4 monitors. This isnt a gamer card. This is a media card and should be treated as such.
It's too powerful to be a media card (compared to the horrible rx 6400 + it doesn't sell with a single slot version)
Why don't you take a look at the intel arc a310 which is $100 & single slot?
@@thetechrealistrx6400 cant encode. 3050 basically has a full feature set and proven driver from nvidia.
Sure you can go with intel, but I am sure not everyone can 100% calmly sleep with this driver support, at least I wouldnt want to now. In 3 generations? sure.
@@Skukkix23 Lol, Intel is too big to just give up on the graphics card market.
But, if it's worth your piece of mind I guess the 3050 is better.
Oh, & to halfway answer your question, the idle power draw should be around 10w or less.
Given that the GTX 1050/ti idle power is 4w
(source-techpowerup)
@@thetechrealistWhat's it with 3 monitors? During video playback?
During encoding?
Are multiple encoding streams a thing (unofficially anyways?)
Can I remove the fans if I just use it as a displaycard on 4 monitors?
Noone cares if this thing runs fortnite.
@@Skukkix23 No clue but maybe you should buy it to test all that out & then return it later if you’re unhappy
This review is a perfect example of what Jeff from Craft Computing was talking about when he made his RTX 4060 review.
The information presented here is accurate - and completely useless for making a buying decision.
People that are spending less than $200 on GPUs aren't buying $70 AAA titles. They are playing esports titles; and not a single one was covered in this review.
If the info given here doesn't help you and in fact is completely useless, then I'm sorry BUT you're the problem. Get better at understanding basic information. Also Jeff was wrong.
that is not true. the amount you spend on a gpu has zero bearing on howmuch you spend on games. the quality of the games is what decides if people will buy the 70$ games at full price or wait till they drop. games releasing in states that are nothing like advertized is not going to entice people to spend 70$ on them.
This is AMD unboxed, an horrible hilarius fanboy AMD, this channel do AMD propaganda with tons of misinformation
@@OmnianMIU lmfao you do realize you are coming off as a massive nvidia fanboy with that kind of statement right? fact is the card is not a 3050 and shouldnt be called 3050. like how hard would it have been for nvidia to call it the 3030 or the 3040. they obviously called it the 3050 because they can charge more for a 3050 than a 3030 and people will obviously get duped thinking they are buying a card that performs like the 3050 8gb but with just 2 gbs less but that isnt the case it doesnt just have 2gb less its slower aswell a whole tier slower.
just to make sure i understood correctly: NVidia launched an RX 580 performance GPU, for RX 580 pricing, 8 years later..........what a deal.
But they had to axe off 2GB VRAM to make it happen. And have AMD provide the frame generation.
So then tell me, what did AMD do with the 6400 & 6500 & 6500xt that this pos beats?
@@thetechrealist In the middle of the crypto boom, when people were having problems getting ANYTHING to attach a monitor to (remember, AMD didn't have integrated graphics at that time) AMD took their low-end laptop dedicated GPUs and stuck them on boards and called it a day. They are products that made sense in that specific context, but today have no place in the market.
@@thetechrealist the 6500/6400 family are by no means great, but even the 6500 xt 8gb still beats out the 3050 6gb while having more ram and lower prices, the 4gb has even lower prices, and the 6400 is just not even in the same bracket its more like a video adapter. but again, not great cards, nobody liked them. and even then they perform better at lower prices (6500 8gb) and everyone hated them, so why like the 3050?
@@andersjjensen AMD is just as guilty of releasing trash, even with that context.
I'd be ok with them labeling this a 3030, particularly if it comes in slim version for those half-width old office PC's that are all over the refurbished market
When do we get the 45W RTX 3030 4GB on a 64-bit bus?
This excites me 😏
Hopefully it doubles the performance of the GT 1030 2GB 64-bit.
This is an rt3030
@@a15bionic59 no this is the RTX3010
The GP108 (GeForce GT 1030) was NVidia's last true low-end chip. It's APUs from then on.
dunno about 64 bit bus but atleast 3050 4gb 40W gpu already exists in laptop
The 3050 has a 64bit laptop variant called 2050.
It might be a very niche topic, but I'd be heavily interested in a video about TDP-limiting various GPUs and how it affects their performance scaling. Nvidia sells some rather intriguing 70W-limited professional cards like the RTX 2000 Ada & 4000 SFF - but those cost an arm and a leg ofc. Using some 12GB+ cards and limiting their TDP in comparison to the prof. variants' pricing would make for a very interesting topic to explore imo.
"see it says 6gb right there... it really is a 6gb version of the 3050... who wouldve expected that"
indeed, sir, indeed hahaha
Who on Earth was like “I want a *downgraded* version of an already low-end, last-gen card”???
Probably the worst GPU of 2024.
Its better choice than rx 6600 for me even with close to similar pricing
Its good for internet cafe business
Where perf dont matter that much (at least in my country)
70watts is good
Its the perfect replacement for 1650
1050/ti
750ti
But i do agree 6600 is good
TLDR buy the 6600 instead of this waste of sand
Thank you for the review Steve. I am interested in dropping one of these low profile RTX 3050s in an old SFF case. It looks to be the fastest lp graphics card that doesn't need external power.
would've been an amazing card around *10 YEARS AGO*
Great roundup, but really drives home there's nothing budget in the current generation which concerns me for the future. Thanks for putting the A580 in this comparison!
They could just named it the 3040 and save themselves the aggravation....
And priced it at 120$
@@DragonOfTheMortalKombat Absolutely.
They want to maximize margins and the name allows OEMs to scam customers by selling them a "3050" but at a lower cost to the OEM. It's extremely scummy but Nviida have been doing this for awhile.
Nah, it will sell better as 3050. Many buyers won't know the difference between the 2 variants.
I had an i5 4590 Dell Optiplex that I got for dirt cheap and then I bought a GTX 1060 6gb and a 450w PSU the December of 2016 just to find out I cant just upgrade my power supply. So I found a TH-cam video on how to use my new PSU to power my GPU separately from the proprietary PSU. I was so ecstatic. That was my first decent PC gaming experience. Used it for about a year like that before buying a second hand motherboard and chassis. I was always scared something would go wrong and blew my GPU up.
Nothing could kill that 1060. It ran all my games until January this year when I bought my 4070 Super. I mined crypto currency with it and rendered scenes in Blender it had no business rendering. And it still ran strong but I could definitely see its age in newer games. I feel regret selling it. Should have kept it is a memorabilia.
Makes sense if it comes in a single slot low profile size.
For me its the low profile variants of this card that are the most interesting, as being both bus powered and low profile makes them a very big upgrade for SFF OptiPlex systems which have 2 low profile slots.
As they offer a massive uplift in performance over the intel onboard video and you also gain AI Video upscaling (RTX super resolution works much better than I expected on my large library of DVD rips) for use in most browsers and Mediaplayer classic.
The only complaint is the terrible name, I liked the card that much I actually purchased a second as an upgrade for a 1650 non supper bus power card I use in my dual system Phanteks system, as being able to dive 3 monitors on the secondly low powered system i snot something I wanted to give up.
Both cards were on sale for £175 including sales TAX and delivered the next day from one of the big online UK computer parts retailers, so at least for me the only complaint is the terribly misleading name, they should have been called RTX3040 Ti.
Not the right product for everyday budget gaming, but a killer product for the right buyer if available at MSRP or less.
Gtx 1630 v2
Not a bad product for a new board without external power requirements. Nice option to convert an office PC to a low end gamer using new part without resorting to funky DYI power setups that can easily damage Vid card/PC. I agree naming can be misleading, but at least it generally gives 60fps for current games.
It may be niche, but I'm very happy about a new Low Profile
Bound to happen with a newly released product. It's hilarious how many shady retailers still think they can scalp GPUs no matter how bad they are, as long as they're new.
It's crazy how reviewers underestimate the used OEM market, they are perfect option if you tight on budget, or just don't know what will be your next step, you wanna play games or not. Somehow kids and those who pirate games (often overlaps these groups) are never counted, they don't show up on statistics or I don't know whats the deal.
When I started to use PC again after a long time of laptop usage I bought a used dell 7010, 3rd gen i5 system, popped in a new 1050Ti and started gaming. Slowly replaced all the components in the system, but I would never spend on the first place double or tripple the price of the original system. It taught me to trust better in the used market.
@@sviktor4It's crazy how the OEM market advocates are ready to pay way too much for a GPU that costs next to nothing to manufacture. Funny also how that they forget to mention that the 8700G, 7840U and 8840U exist and fit the small form factor and low power usage market even better.
Have seen a few used A2000s for ~€170 and think I'll still go for that. Price/performance works out a little better and I don't have to give money to nVidia 🥳
@@kathleendelcourt8136 Those who buy OEM systems are uninformed and have some level of trust issues with the used market, they just wanna save some money. An average working guy who spends a little time on research, or a college suggest some config is good enough to buy a system. People use these systems in the office they know they can trust a 3-4 years old OEM PC, but it's has limitations so they buy a new LP graphics card, because they don't know and trust the used market, both the used OEM PC and the new GPU came with warrianty.
In 2017 when I bought a PC after a long time of laptop usage I set a limit of 100.000 HUF. 60.000 HUF for a Dell 7010 system and 37.000 HUF for a brand knew 1050Ti LP. The next year or two I slowly replaced the whole system with stronger components, but I had to start my jouney somewhere.
An other point to consider you can buy dirt cheap OEM PC from your company, so you have lot more money for "stupid" GPU. My friend sent me a list what's worth buying, and all thesystem were dirt cheap, just the CPU alone worth more then the whole system in the used market.
In my country rtx 3050 6gb $190, rtx 3050 8gb $250 and rx 6600 $340. That's why I decided to buy RTX 3050 6GB and because of the low energy consumption. I don't play at 4k and 200 fps. The games I play run well with the RTX 3050 6gb dlss
Well in my country rtx 3050 8gb and rx 6600 is 200 dollar. Rtx 3050 6gb around 190/180 dollar
More for updating a business pc, or a home theater build; but it is NOT a gaming GPU. To determine its place in history, compare it to its actual predecessor: the 1650 (non-super) with the same power limit. That would show steady improvement from the 1050/1650/3050 over time. Comparing it by price to pandemic cards is sort of useless; and the Radeon card was limited by TDP of just 53 W. As your prior video demonstrated, vram matters; so constantly slamming the 6400 for not competing with a 75W card with half again the vram ? Just say they aren't equivalent and leave it. Even the 6500xt had twice the TDP of that card. Oh, and you get big bonus points for NOT including crap like the 1030 or 710 that seemed to be pandemic best sellers.
You'd only buy one of the low power cards for a very small system, or to upgrade a system with just an IGP and worthless power supply. Any discussion of value, then, probably needs to include upgrading the power supply for anything more powerful, that fits in the case ----- which is almost your entire list of cards . I paid almost a hundred US to upgrade the pitiful 180w ps in a desktop HP was selling (it was, however, really really cheap, and a storm blew out my previous system -- and the TV, the microwave, some light bulbs. . . . I needed cheap!)
Steve gets riled up because he thinks "3050" is the name when "3050 GB" or GV-N3050EAGLE OC-6GD" is the actual name of the product.
He did the same thing with the GT 1030 DDR4 and 5700 where he cried that the 5700 is a 5700G without the graphics (when the G designation is literally... graphics).
Once he realizes he doesn't like the "name", he does whatever possible to make the product look as bad as possible.
"Outrage drives clicks and clicks drive revenue."
@@tim3172he's right in that if you look at the listing on Amazon or Newegg, the sku or product number isn't what the non-savvy person will be aware of; but he also ought to be used to it by now. Somebodies' Grandma is going to get the wrong stocking stuffer. But expecting NVidia to care? Steve will give himself a stroke.
Good for low profile, plex-oriented hardware transcoding setups, emulation, retro/indie gaming and backup display if your big man GPU dies. But a used low profile card could also do it. At least you have a warranty and the bells and whistles IF you want to game.
People on Reddit defending this product and attacking HU like wth!!!!
Why not include the Arc a750?
Should i wait for this one? Was about to by an Arc a580 😅
Don't buy this bs get a rx 6600
Buy 2nd hand, save yourself
Buy Rx 6600Xt
@@inGameweTrusted Less power consumption when it's idle, i guess RX 6500xt would be good for gaming and productivity. I thought Arc A580 would be good for futureproofing. Is RX 6500xt good?
@@walkitlikeitalkit.4692 RX 6600, NOT 6500 XT. RX 6600 uses like 100-120 watts and its much better
Prob was gonna GTX line card but they just got rid of that branding
Nvidia literally going for a cash grab for people who know little about graphic cards and computer peripherals and trying to scam them by selling an inferior product that is BOTTOM OF THE BARREL with "more" memory. Quite an introduction these folks will have to Nvidia, shame as they have some good GPUs from the current generation that can be sold cheaper.
6600 is just the king of 1080 plus its been hovering like $180-190
They did this before with GTX 1630... This is the very bottom of their last gen stack, there's no universe where this shouldn't be a 10/20/30 class and cost at most $100... but yay price _and_ name inflation, screw nGreedia.
The naming also has business side problems. Much harder to upsell to an 8GB model as they are "the same model". If they named it something like the "RTX 3050 C", C for carbon, for instance it would be distinct and people might go up to the next model. You can come up with whether carbon is carbon fiber or coal or something else.
same price to performance as a gt 1030 lul
Any chance you could test the KalmX model?
Is it faster than rx5600xt 6gb??
no
Lol no. It is barely faster than 1060 lol
Sometimes I feel bad about still only having a 1070, then I see these vids. Well done fam
So remembering the RTX 3060 8GB too, I'd name them like so.
RTX 3050ti - (RTX 3060 8GB)
RTX 3050 - (RTX 3050 8GB)
RTX 3030 - (RTX 3050 6GB)
The reason I'd pick 3030 instead of 3040, is there have been several XX30 class GPUs that have been small, basic, cheap GPUs, so we can all understand what Nvidia is actually selling, see 730, 1030, 1630. I don't know if a XX40 class has ever existed.
there was a 640 and a 740 about a decade ago
Hi Steve, thanks for the thorough review and price comparison for this budget card. For the comparison charts at the end with cost per frame, please could you in future include the VRAM capacity for ALL cards, as this helps when comparing prices looking up and down the rows. Thanks for the great work as always 🙂
Deng I remember times when series 50 was under 100$ but that time is gone 😢
When were the 50 class cards ever lower than 100 USD? I looked at the MSRPs for a bunch of them and the lowest I could find were the 650 and 1050 at $110. That's not even accounting for inflation either.
@@NovaXP let me look again you Nvidia schill 😁
Considering the 6gb RTx 3050 is beating the RX6500XT in most cases and doesn’t require a 6 pin connector is pretty impressive